Stems and Seeds
by ChildeSande
Summary: If I'd known who he was, I'd have run the other way. Well... no. That's the thing about St. Jimmy. You know he's not a nice guy, you know he could care less if the world went up in flames, but you still want to follow him. NO OC Romance.
1. The streets of shame

Welcome to the dark side, young Skywalker. Welcome to the streets in a not-so-nice wonderland. Welcome, welcome.

So here's the deal. This is a revamp of my story based of Green Day's song _Saint Jimmy_ with bits of the musical thrown in. This is the story of how someone from the outside gets to know the Underbelly, Jimmy and Whatshername. Moved here from fictionpress after editing. Keep all appendages inside the vehicle; have a nice flight.

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><p><p>

Before Johnny came along, St. Jimmy was lost. I knew him. The Saint. The sinner. He was fascinating, a spark- bright and brief and dangerous.

I didn't know who he was when I met him. And I didn't know what he was going to get me into. Maybe I would've walked away if I'd known. Probably not. That's the thing about St. Jimmy. You know he's not a nice guy, you know he could care less if the whole world went up in flames, and you still want to follow him.

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>But that's the end, not the beginning. So I'll start there.<p><p>

I was in college. USC. Not too far away from the glamour of Beverly Hills. Not too far away from the worst of the slums either. Mostly, you knew where to be careful and walk with friends. Don't venture into the rougher places in L.A. And most definitely do not wear your shiny new Rolex or wave wads of $20s in the air.

Simple, right?

That's what we thought. My friends and I _thought_ we had it down pat. I mean we weren't push-overs physically and there were four of us. We were twenty years old, soon-to-be-Juniors, and thought we knew everything. So we all pulled on our jackets and went for an adventure.

Our object was a seedy place where there was supposed to be crazy underground concerts. It was fair to say that we weren't just going for the music. I was in a band with a couple of the other guys but it was nothing serious. Mostly, we heard there was some great weed and an unhealthy amount of alcohol.

Why didn't we go to a frat party? Well, we wanted that edge of danger.

The club didn't look like anything on the outside. Just a big boxy white warehouse stained with reddish brown rust and graffiti.

But I remember the people. I remember how they looked to me, like I'd stepped into some alien world where normal hair colors didn't exist and piercing _something_ was a must. It wasn't like I hadn't been around this kind of thing before. I lived in LA, right? There was enough diversity there for a World Cultures Convention. But here, well it was like everything had been turned upside down and now we were the ones that didn't belong. It was…uncomfortable.

We went in anyway. We weren't going to be intimidated by these freaks. Not us, nooooo. I was determined to enjoy myself; getting beaten into one giant bruise in the pit, hearing punk-rock music screaming through the haze. I remember stumbling outside at God-knows-what hour because Mike couldn't hold his liquor. We helped him up, laughing as he groaned.

I don't remember why Tony went back inside. I think he was going to give his number to a chick. I don't remember why Mike ambled away- maybe to throw up again. It doesn't matter. What matters are the results.

The second-hand smoke and endorphins made the world into a strange mix of clarity and haze.

Tye was the only one who stayed where he was, finishing up the last of the weed he'd gotten off some girl. He was standing there chatting with her (purple contacts, cat-ears, and all) when she wrapped her arms around his middle and held on tight.

That was about the funniest thing I'd seen all night and I was in the process of laughing my ass off and trying to get a good picture with my cell when a guy goes up to Tye and grabs the girl clinging to him. He looked like a regular: leather-clad and scowling. He tried to pry this girl away from Tye, but she absolutely refused to let go of him, and was giggling madly, just loving all the attention, her purple cat ears hanging crookedly off her head. Tye, for his part, was looking at both of them with a bemused smile on his face and didn't react at all when Mr. Jealous Boyfriend started yelling.

"What the hell, Elfie?" Or was it Effie, or Luffy? I'm not sure. But whatever her name was, she rolled her eyes at him. The boyfriend then turned to Tye, "Get your hands of my girl!"

By this point I was trying to telepathically make Tye step away. Slowly. The guy's friend was huge and looked even taller thanks to his outrageous Mohawk. But Tye, the idiot, just grinned, and this was apparently all it took for the punk kid to decide to break Tye's nose. At which point I stepped in.

And got punched in the throat by Mr. Jealousy's mohawked friend.

Street fighting is not as glorious as Hollywood makes it look. Mostly it's just rolling around trying to punch whatever part of the other person is closest. And I was getting beaten up. My head hit the pavement sending a jolt through my body. My vision went white for a second. I swear Mohawk was wearing steel-toed boots. My ribs felt like they were caving in and panic flashed through me. Pure terror. And then suddenly there was nothing. No one was there.

I sat up slowly, confused as hell.

He was silhouetted against the grungy orange street light. A black outline against the backdrop of the boulevard.

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><p><p>

Review and I edit/update. Don't review, I think nobody cares, I take it down, yeah? Peachy keen.

This is in no way passive aggressive. Don't tell my therapist.


	2. The spark in the night

**So yeah. I'm swamped with work, but I'll try to be better about updating. No promises though. Also, to my reviewers, thank you so so so much. Extra special brownie points, as in *special brownies, not special points. Also, if there are things that need fixing (and I know there are) please let me know so I can edit. Thanks again.**

_We return to our story where our main protagonist has just gotten the shit kicked out of him for no other reason than being a good and mostly-sober friend. He is saved by mysterious hero/villain extraordinaire._

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><p>It was a guy. He wasn't any older than I was. Everything about him was hard, sharp angles from his long black nails to his spiky hair. He was thin as a rail. In fact, he wasn't particularly intimidating as far as I could tell, but those guys were looking at him like he was carrying a grenade. Maybe he was.<p>

He'd hauled the guy off me and two people with him had done the same for Tye. "What the fuck's your problem, Heath?" he demanded, turning to the guy thrashing in his grip. Mr. Jealousy's real name apparently.

"Damn jock was hitting on my girlfriend!"

"Your _girlfriend_ was hitting on him!" I interjected angrily.

"You want to start something?" Mohawk glared in my direction. I glared back. Bring it on. I was running on adrenaline.

The new guy stepped between us. His voice was low and dangerous like the grinding of metal on metal. "You know what I hate Heath?" he hissed, "I fucking _hate it_ when people desecrate holy ground." He leaned in toward Mr. Jealousy, the street light illuminating only a part of his grin like some demented Cheshire cat. "This is a place where people can come to get away from the flimsy lies they live everyday. A place where there's no rules, no labels, no bullshit. Just music. You wanna mess with that… you and I are gonna have… issues." He stepped back and looked around at all of us. It was a look that said _just-give-me-a-reason_.

I suppressed the shiver that ran from my fingertips up the back of my neck. And to my surprise, Heath backed off. With a hurried, "whatever," turned around and walked away, friends following nervously (including Mohawk who I watched warily until he was at a safe distance.)

The girl stayed behind.

She went over to this kid, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. "Thanks, St. Jimmy," she giggled flirtatiously. He grabbed her wrists with a sudden flick, fast and furious.

"Yeah yeah. Find another street corner."

She huffed and pouted at him with her purple kitty eyes before realizing that he was serious. She flounced off after her boyfriend. The guy watched her leave, staring down the dim boulevard even after she disappeared from sight. I went over to Tye who was holding his jacket up to his nose and trying to breathe evenly through his mouth. "You okay?" I asked him quietly. He just gave a half-hearted shrug. "Fucking hurts," he mumbled with his head tipped back. He didn't look so good, and I was betting that he'd have a black eye to match his nose. We needed to get back to the dorms soon or maybe to a hospital depending on how bad it was.

The kid who had helped me was talking to his friends now, standing on the edge of the light. He wasn't much to look at physically. Maybe a little taller than average. He was also rail thin, all legs and bony shoulders like a spider.

At that point Tony came back out, towing Mike who was looking pretty sick. Tony helped him sit on the edge of the curb before moving toward us. He looked somewhere between disgusted and murderous. "Mike just threw up on my potential date," he glowered. He must've been a little high because he hadn't said anything about Tye yet. "I swear I'm going to kill him tomorrow!"

Wait for it… wait for it…

"Holy shit! What happened to you guys?"

"Tye had his own set of girl troubles," I replied sourly. "We need to get him somewhere fast."

"He gonna be alright?" the punk kid called over to us.

"Not sure. Is there an all-night clinic or anything near here?" Please please please.

"No, it's all warehouses."

"Damn," I said softly. I looked back at Tye, who was swaying on his feet. "Hospitals?"

"Nope. Sorry." He didn't sound sorry, in fact I could have sworn he snickered. "There's an emergency clinic over on 12th Street, but that's about it."

I glanced between Tye, who was swaying on his feet, and Mike, who was doubled over on the edge of the sidewalk. "I don't think we'll make it to 12th."

He raised his eyebrows. "You don't have a car?" I shook my head. "Damn."

"Hey! St. Jimmy!" One of the other guys yelled, "You coming?"

He paused for a moment, then looked back at us and rolled his eyes. "Naw, go on ahead! I'll see you round." He smirked at me, and it wasn't exactly a friendly expression, but he gestured at Tye and said, "I'll drive."

"You?" I probably should have sounded more grateful, but it honestly surprised me so much that I forgot. I was also a little nervous about accepting a ride. You know what Mother says about getting in strange people's cars.

"You deaf? Grab your friends. And if that one pukes in the car, he's paying the cleaning bill. Got it?"

I nodded dumbly. And then I cursed at myself for being an idiot.


	3. What the hell's your name

**So yeah. Here goes nothing. Enjoy the show. No fucking flash photography or I will take your camera and put it in the lost and found. **

The "Saint" Jimmy gave me another demented Cheshire Cat grin and jerked his head down the boulevard. "You coming?"

I nodded fervently and yelled at Tony and Mike as I grabbed Tye's elbow and steered him in front of me. The walk wasn't far, but it seemed longer because I ended up supporting Tye and Mike had to stop several times to throw up. No one talked. Our guide whistled an eerie tune. Scenes from horror movies played in my head.

The car was cramped and smelled like weed. Tye rode up front, his jacket still pressed to his nose even though the bleeding had probably stopped. The Ready Clinic was a bright white square in the darkness with a neon red cross out front. I explained the situation to the nurse, leaving out illegal substances and other unnecessary details. She took it quite calmly, not once betraying anything but professionalism. I'm sure she had dealt with a lot worse. She led Tye to get X-rays and told me I could wait in the front.

As I entered the empty lobby I was surprised to see a thin black figure sitting a little apart from my friends. He looked even stranger under the fluorescent lights. His dark hair was streaked with blue, his blue eyes were rimmed with black, and his fair skin stood out against his all-black clothing, which looked as though someone's pitbull had gotten a hold of it. He belonged out there, in the dark streets. Here, lounging in one of the yellow plastic seats, he looked like a Gothic voodoo doll in Martha Stuart's kitchen.

I sat down, filling the gap between my friends and the stranger. "You can go if you want. You don't have to wait around. I can call a cab or something."

"Yeah, maybe. Not like I have anything better to do, really."

"Thanks, for earlier I mean. And for the ride. I really don't know what we would have done."

"I didn't do it for you."

"Right. I just… never mind. Thanks anyway." He didn't reply, and I was beginning to wonder if he wanted a reward or something when he grinned and spread his arms out dramatically.

"Don't worry about it. I'm having the time of my life." He looked like he meant it too.

I had no reply to that, so I stretched out my hand, "I'm Kyle, by the way."

He didn't take it. Instead he gave me a mock salute and a smirk, "St. Jimmy."

"St. Jimmy?" Turns out I had heard correctly.

"Don't wear it out."

I couldn't think of anything else to say, so I let the silence stretch between us. He seemed content to sit there and watch the orderlies going back and forth. Still, my mind was preoccupied with our conversation.

"They seriously call you _Saint_ Jimmy?"

"Sometimes." He looked at me with cold eyes and for all the world I couldn't figure him out.

"Why?"

He turned away and shrugged. "We all need something to believe in."

Either this guy was higher than a kite or he was for real. I was betting on high, but somehow I wanted him to mean it. I wanted meaning in all this craziness. I realized my hand was still only halfway lowered and hastily stuck it in my pocket. St. Jimmy tilted back in his chair and appraised me carefully. "Got a cigarette?"

"Oh… um, no. I don't think we're allowed to smoke in here." He gave me a weird look before turning to Tony. "You?"

"Sure." Tony handed him a slightly squashed pack, and soon tendrils of smoke were curling up into the pristine white ceiling. It took the receptionist a few minutes to notice before she curtly informed St. Jimmy that he needed to take it outside. He grinned and ground it into the nice, white tile floor. The receptionist looked supremely offended. I was torn between amusement and astonishment. I looked over at Tony who raised his eyebrows as if to say, "Is this guy for real?"

Tye came back out to us looking thoroughly miserable with glazed over eyes and an icepack held over his swollen nose. Everyone jumped up and crowded around him asking questions which he tried in vain to answer. Except St. Jimmy.

After we'd satisfied our curiosity about Tye, I turned back to talk to our guide before realizing he was no longer in the lobby… I hadn't even noticed him leave.

Instead, he was lounging on the hood of his car outside, the red neon cross casting a faintly sinister light on his face. Just then it occurred to me that if my life was a horror movie, this would be the part where we all got murdered. I have an overactive imagination sometimes. He watched us for a moment and then grinned. "Where to?"

"You don hab 'o worry aboudid," Tye protested. I translated for him. "He says you don't have to worry about it… We can call a cab."

"Whatever. Get the fuck in while I'm still offering."

"Gee, how thoughtful," I muttered sarcastically, but he laughed like I'd been trying to make a joke.

"That's me," he slid in and gunned the engine. I directed from the front seat this time, since it seemed like I had become the official liaison between our party and St. Jimmy. As we progressed into the nicer sections of the city, he looked at me critically and asked, "So why did you come down to the Warehouse?"

_Because we wanted to see what it was like in the slums,_ I almost said but caught myself. "We heard there was some good music." That seemed like an acceptable answer.

"And you ended up getting fucked up beyond belief," he snorted.

"Hey. We're- well _I'm_ not!"

"True. Too bad." I couldn't see his face in the dark.

"Thank you. Again, I mean. Not many people would have helped us out like this."

He was quiet for a minute until we pulled up to a traffic light. Then he turned to me, holding my gaze, "Let's get something straight right now. I'm not a nice person. Not even close. Compredes?"

I would have laughed except that he was completely, intensely serious. I didn't think I could look away. I gulped. "Um, yeah."

"Good," he said quietly and turned back to the road. His laughter threw itself against the windows of the car and startled us all. "Geez, chill! You guys saved me from a night of boredom and hero-worship. I should be thanking you!"

"What?"

"Nothing," he said, still laughing to himself a little. I didn't understand in the slightest. I was still staring at him when I blurted out my own question.

"How old are you?"

"Hm? Oh, nineteen."

"Seriously?" That was almost two years younger than I was. And at least four years younger than Mr. Mohawk and Crew. "Where do you go to school?" I knew it was a stupid question as soon as I asked it. He didn't even deign to reply, but gave me yet another eye roll. I tried another question before the stupidity could register. "What was that you said about 'sacred ground'?" It had been nagging at me since I'd heard it.

"Oh, that. I don't like it when people mess with the music. Not that I don't like fights. But the Warehouse is a gathering place for people who don't have anywhere else. They get together to listen to music and get high and forget their miserable lives for a few hours. Some people _need_ it to get through one day at a time, as much as they need the dope and the people to go home with."

It took a minute to sink in. Looking at him, I thought that St. Jimmy might be one of those who needed music like that. There was something in his voice… I still didn't understand, but I wanted to. I needed to.

He pulled up outside our dorms and I hesitated before getting out. I felt like I should say something, but he had made it clear he didn't want to be thanked. I settled for, "It was nice meeting you." It seemed woefully inadequate. St. Jimmy rolled his eyes a final time as if acknowledging my failure and drove away down the dark street.

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><p><strong>R&amp;R, yeah? Rest and Relaxation. Oh, damn. That's the motto for the happy hotel. I meant Read and Review. Serious. <strong>

**Also, if you have the good fortune to live in New York, which I'm assuming you do if you've been to see AI, then go see "Sleep No More". I swear it's the coolest goddamn thing I've ever done. Ever. It's _Punchdrunk_'s adaptation of Macbeth. **


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